Villagers are gearing up to fight plans for a huge lorry park near their homes - fearing it will bring round-the-clock noise and pollution to the countryside.

KentOnline this week revealed the proposals for the 70-acre site, between West Hougham and Capel-le-Ferne, which would accommodate up to 600 HGVs.

It is being promoted as a way to prevent gridlock from port-bound traffic on the A20 at Dover - and developers say it would also tackle the problem of anti-social lorry parking along roads and in lay-bys.

But residents of Hougham Without say it would destroy a peaceful rural area within a designated National Landscape, formerly known as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Parish councillor Peter Robinson told KentOnline: “I think it's disgraceful.

“This is an area of farmland and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Having that sort of facility on our doorstep is just going to be atrocious.

“It's going to mean that we're going to be subjected to noise, pollution, and the coming and going of lorries 24/7, 365 days a year.

“We've never had any industrialised activity around this area at all.

“I understand there's quite a lot of anger and fury in the village about something that's going to impact heavily on it.

“We’re starting the campaign against it right now. We've got to stop it with all the ammunition at our disposal.”

A public meeting will be held at Hougham Village Hall from 6.30pm on Tuesday, November 4, ahead of an extraordinary parish council meeting to discuss the plans.

The scheme, put forward by GSE Truckstop Developments, part of the GSE Group behind the Ashford International Truckstop, would sit on land beside the A20 at the Court Wood Interchange, the junction with the B2011.

Mr Robinson added: “There's hardly any room for any activity there at all, so we're going to face a constant stream of traffic when we want to go towards Folkestone.

“We’re already facing constant hold-ups on the A20 because of the number of lorries that park there on a regular basis.”

Residents will also be able to attend a public consultation exhibition hosted by the developers at the village hall from 2pm to 7pm on Thursday, December 4, where full details of the proposal will be available.

Hougham Without is a small parish of around 500 people and 210 households, with more than half of residents aged over 50. It incorporates West Hougham and Church Hougham.

While many villagers are preparing to object, others living closer to Dover’s port believe the scheme could ease long-standing traffic and pollution problems.

Residents of Aycliffe, Dover’s smallest community, regularly suffer when port-bound HGVs back up along the A20 during delays – sometimes for hours under the Dover TAP (Traffic Access Protocol), which was activated 137 times in 2024.

Shopkeeper Krish Karu, who runs Aycliffe Mini Market, said: "Hopefully it will work. When the traffic is bad it takes me half an hour on the road to collect supplies from the cash and carry, when the drive should just take two to three minutes.

“This is when both lanes of the A20 outside Aycliffe are taken up by lorries.”

Resident Maisie Welsh added: “I am more hopeful now because it is especially bad for traffic queues during school half-term and summer holidays. The lorry drivers are beeping their horns 24/7 and that is particularly distressing for my pet dog."

Neighbour Thomas Beer was less optimistic.

“I’m not convinced this is going to work for Aycliffe,” he said.

“The lorry drivers can spend the night at the new lorry park or the one at Ashford, but they will still have to queue up for the port again.

“The problem is often to do with delays in French border controls.

“If they can put the port on the other side of Capel-le-Ferne, then all our problems would be solved."

The 24/7 truckstop would include a restaurant, shop, gym, showers and toilets, and is expected to create around 100 jobs.

A spokesperson for the Courtwood Truckstop Project said: “We recognise local residents will have questions about the project, which is why we’ll be meeting with local councillors as well as holding a public exhibition and creating a project website.

“The project is still in the early stages of the planning process and we will continue to develop the scheme in line with survey work and consultation responses prior to submission of a planning application.

“The proposed lorry park is designed to serve existing HGV traffic using the A20 to access the Port of Dover, so there is no reason to believe it would generate additional lorry movements.”

The spokesperson added: “We recognise that the proposed lorry park is in a National Landscape, but it is grade-3 agricultural land that is of little environmental interest and contains no existing landscape features or components considered rare, unique or irreplaceable.”

They said that two-thirds of the 70-acre site would remain undeveloped, with new bunding, woodland, hedges and grassland to help screen it from nearby areas.

They added: “Because of the contour of the land and the use of bunding, our initial surveys show minimal visual impact particularly on areas to the east of the A20 such as Capel-le-Ferne. We are, of course, alert to neighbouring settlements and are actively developing screening and landscape mitigation strategies to seek to minimise any possible impacts.

“In the short-term, parts of the truckstop will be visible from a very small number of viewpoints in other directions however, these will become notably less visible as new planting matures over time. We will also be implementing a sensitive lighting and noise strategy.”

The company says the scheme will provide a safer, more secure resting place for drivers close to the port, helping to tackle anti-social parking and idling in local communities.

The Port of Dover has welcomed the plans, which will be subject to public consultation before being formally submitted to Dover District Council.

In 2024, the port handled 2.1 million HGVs - about 5,930 per day - and the proposed lorry park could accommodate about 10% of that daily traffic.

Capel-le-Ferne parish clerk Maureen Leppard said they had only recently received notification of the plans from Dover District Council.

She said councillors will respond, highlighting “any implications to our community”.